Chain of Reasoning
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: That which does not kill us makes us strong.


Disclaimer: These are not my characters and I make no profit from them.

**Author's Note: **As Liz so rightly reminded me, we're still on episode nine—"Prince of Fat City". Basketball plays a major role in this one. Shades of McCormick's first night on the estate, the judge challenges his new guest, Death Ray Thomas, to a game of one-on-one basketball. The kid squeaks out a win in their forty point game with both of them taking a few hits. The next day (as the plot thickens and it becomes apparent that that their visitor is hiding some important evidence) it's Mark's turn to take Death Ray. While Hardcastle is off confronting the judge who is setting up Thomas to be murdered, Mark challenges the young man to another game of b-ball, staking the Coyote against the hidden tapes. It's a long, hard-fought game—all the way to 100 points—but Mark finally puts it over on his younger opponent.

This one follows the story "Kids".

**Chain of Reasoning**

by L.M. Lewis

After breakfast Mark dug out the bush, broke it up into reasonably sized pieces, and carted the whole mess off to one of the less frequented corners of the estate. That and filling in the resultant hole was enough of a chore to occupy him nearly till lunch time. He strolled back toward the garage to stow the shovel.

He'd mostly gotten over the injustice of it all—him stuck with an extra chore even after Death Ray's departure. He'd even convinced himself that one less bush to keep trimmed, prorated over the period of 'indefinitely', meant he was actually saving time and energy by digging it up all at once. He'd gone so far as to ponder further 'accidents' to the landscaping as a means of simplifying his life. Thoreau would have been proud.

That Hardcastle hadn't come round and offered any assistance was no big surprise either. Mark could see him through the front window of the den--working up a sweat on the telephone, no doubt. He subconsciously realized that none of these cases ended when the handcuffs went on the guilty parties. In Hardcastle's strange legalistic world, the guys weren't even officially guilty until all the due process had been processed.

Mark sighed. In the meantime, there were ten fifty-pound bags of manure and three of peat moss that needed spreading, in addition to the daily round of pool maintenance.

He wondered absently who was making lunch. With Sarah away the system had gotten a bit slapdash, mostly falling on whoever got hungry first. Mark might not be a lawyer but he understood precedent and he knew if he was the one who worked up an appetite first too many days in a row, the job would become his . . . _indefinitely_.

He frowned and tried to remember if he still had a candy bar squirreled away in the gatehouse somewhere. It might be better to check now, before he got too far into the manure. It was in the middle of that thought that Hardcastle appeared at the front door.

"Hey, you hungry?"

Mark's disposition brightened considerably but he didn't have a chance to answer before the judge went on, more to himself, "What am I sayin'? You're always hungry." He shook his head briefly, "Anyway, I figured we're both kinda busy so I'd order a pizza, whaddaya say?"

A smile and a nod where all he got in edgewise before the judge added, "But you're finished with that bush deal," he gestured to the now vacant spot across the drive, "so you can go pick it up."

"The truck," Mark insisted firmly. "The Coyote needs a rest. You expect an awful lot out of that car. No chores till Benny's had a look."

The judge shrugged. "I'll phone it in. You pick it up." He reached into his pocket for his wallet.

For once it was a fair division of labor, in Mark's opinion.

00000

They ate their pizza in the kitchen, and Hardcastle seemed in a hurry to get back to his phone. Mark was lingering over one last piece when the judge tossed him a look from the doorway.

"That fertilizer won't spread itself."

"Tell me about it," Mark said resignedly.

He pushed himself up from the table, feeling a few creaks and whole lot of stuff that had stiffened up just in the short while he'd been sitting. He gathered up the plates and ferried them to the sink, aware that the judge was still giving him an appraising stare.

Mark assumed a stance that matched his nonchalant question. "What's all the phone stuff about?"

Hardcastle sighed. "The damn psychiatrist, getting cold feet. Doesn't want it leaking out that he was horn-swaggled by Brandt and Shelcroft. He's going to start forgetting stuff pretty quick if someone doesn't buck him up a little."

"Wouldn't be such a bad thing for Death—"

Hardcastle interrupted him with a sudden and stern frown.

Mark sighed and started up again, "for _Harold_, that is . . . I mean, if the shrink forgot his tapes had been stolen the kid would probably walk."

"I thought you had him figured for an unreformed gangster."

Mark shrugged. "Unreformed or not, doesn't seem very fair that he's done more time for this rap than Shelcroft's done in his whole slimy career."

"Good point. That's the other thing I've been working on. I figured the least I could do for Harold is get him transferred out to one of the minimum security work camps—a little fresh air and honest chores, that'll help him stay on the straight and narrow."

Mark's couldn't help it; the disbelief must've been written plainly on his face. Hardcastle had obviously picked up on it

"What, you don't think that'd do him a world of good?"

"Are you sure you aren't trying to get even with him for the hatchet job on the bush?"

The judge raised one eyebrow, but it might've been partly in self-analysis because he didn't deny it right away.

"I dunno," Mark shook his head, "I'm glad you didn't go to bat for me that way. Q was bad enough—but hard labor?"

There was something in Hardcastle's expression, or maybe it was the protracted silence that followed this assumption about his non-interference. Mark listened to it spin out for a moment and then his eyes went slightly narrower.

"You weren't eligible," the judge muttered. "Second offense before your first parole was up," he offered in explanation.

Mark put his hand to his forehead and shook his head again, this time in disbelief. "I can't believe it. _No_, what's not to believe? You never ask anybody if they want their life interfered with. It comes from being a judge all those years, that's what." He turned away, jerked the faucet on with a lot more force than it required, and rattled the dishes unnecessarily.

"Chores are good for a person," Hardcastle insisted stubbornly. "Builds character."

"Builds blisters," Mark grumbled, but it had taken him a moment to think of that objection and when he glanced over his shoulder to see what effect his retort had had, Hardcastle was already gone, back to the den and presumably to his own chores, nagging the shrink and interfering further with Harold's life.

00000

The afternoon went by at a sweaty but steady pace with the manure shared out equally among the plants. Mark figured that was a pretty good metaphor: life consisting of equal parts crap and roses. It was some kind of weird alchemy to be able to turn one into the other, he decided, and he hadn't quite mastered that yet.

He hadn't even gotten to the pool yet, when he looked up from the last turned-over spade-full and saw Hardcastle strolling up from the garage, basketball tucked under his arm.

"Wanna play?"

Mark wiped his brow and glanced down at his watch, then up at the sun—the more reliable of the two timepieces.

"Who's cookin' dinner?"

"Whoever doesn't get to twenty points first," Hardcastle said sharkily.

Mark gave that a moment's thought and then a nod, wiping his hands off on his jeans, but not too thoroughly. He figured the manure had to be good for something—ball control maybe. He snatched it from the judge.

"I'll take it out, though."

Hardcastle opened his mouth to protest but Mark cut him off.

"Who's been out here in the hot sun all day?"

"Who's spotting who thirty years?"

Mark made a face. "Don't gimme that. You almost whipped Dea—" He stopped and swallowed once. "—whipped _Harold _the other night and you were spotting _him_ forty-somethin' years."

"Yeah, but I lost." Hardcastle stood at the edge of the ersatz half-court, hands on his hips. Mark gave the ball a couple desultory dribbles, waiting for the judge to finish making his point. The point didn't get made, but the older man looked a little too deep in thought for a guy who was about to play some street ball.

Mark finally scratched his head and said, "So?"

"And you beat him," Hardcastle replied solemnly, as though he'd just finished working through an unpleasantly thorny problem. Then he added, curiously, "By how much?"

Mark grinned. "Three points. We were tied, 97-all, and I put a beaut in from wa-aay outside the key." He sent one up from where he stood. It arced in perfect imitation of the previous day's. He watched it hit the slot just like it had then, and he scooped it up on the rebound, turning to face the judge. He was still grinning.

Hardcastle was looking at him in something approaching astonishment.

"Like you've never seen me do it," Mark's grin subsided to something that was still pretty smug but Hardcastle's expression hadn't budged. The judge finally put voice to it.

"A _hundred_ points?"

"Well," Mark drew himself up, "_yeah_. This is the Coyote we're talking about here, Judge. I wasn't about to lose it to some snot-nosed kid."

"Yeah, but what the hell made you think going for a hundred was a good idea? You were spotting him thirteen years."

"Exactly," Mark nodded, as though Hardcastle had just proven his point for him. But there was no illumination on the judge's face.

"He's a kid, see?" Mark tucked the ball back under his arm. "They're mostly sprinters. He bolted out ahead of you right at the start that first night. You almost had him in the last ten points."

"Okay, so fifty points, _maybe_."

"Uh-uh. I had to be dead sure."

"More like just dead, after playing that little monster to a hundred," Hardcastle muttered.

"Oh, now you're willing to admit he was no angel?"

"Okay, well, yeah—he played some pretty mean ball."

"That he did," Mark smiled slyly. "Almost as mean as you, I'd say. But I'd had a chance to see all his tricks when he played you, and he hadn't invented anything new. So I figured as long as I could outlast him, I'd get to keep my keys."

"Hmm." Hardcastle cast a glance over to where the Coyote was parked on the drive, then he shifted his gaze back to its owner. "Well, I appreciate it—your making the offer, even if you _were_ pretty sure you'd win. A hundred points," he let out a long, low whistle, "that's a lot of elbows to the ribs."

Mark rubbed his left side and nodded.

"But I guess you oughta be thanking me, too."

"Huh?" Mark looked up sharply. "Why? You gonna say you softened him up for me the night before?"

"Nah," Hardcastle smiled, then his expression turned suddenly thoughtful. "Though maybe . . . _nah_—it's not me wearing him down for you; it's all that endurance you were so sure you had."

Mark eyed him warily.

"That's from doing chores, kiddo. You oughta be thanking me for making you tote that barge and lift that bale—"

"Spread a lotta peat moss or you'll land in jail?"

"Yup, that's it. You takin' that ball out or are we gonna play for who makes breakfast?"

"Thank you, huh?" Mark smiled and shook his head slowly in chagrined disbelief. "Let's just go for a hundred, instead."


End file.
